


Fight Fire With Fire

by bewarethesmirk



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewarethesmirk/pseuds/bewarethesmirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Ezra's betrayal, Aria's life is in shambles. She deconstructs the pieces and constructs revenge.</p><p>Set within 4x21. Spoilers!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight Fire With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is set within 4x21. I found Aria's mindset so interesting in 4x21. Lucy did such a great job. The girls handle all the trauma and upheaval in their lives way too well (excepting Spencer last season), so it's nice to see someone reacting to heartbreak and betrayal within the confines of something the audience can understand.
> 
> Aria is quite violent here. I'm hinting at more going on with her personality because it's (1) understandable, and (2) the exploration of the Aria is A theory is interesting (and pretty sure will be explored in the show, even though I doubt it will become canon).
> 
> P.S. I imagine there's more than the story than what we know, and Ezra will probably somehow be redeemed. As a Ezria lover, I hope so!

The pages of Ezra's journal have blackened to nothing more than curled fragments of their former selves. If Aria put her hand into the flames to pick one out, it'd crumble to ash in her fingers, decorating her palms with soot. At least some things are still predictable. At least physics won't lie.

Aria throws her phone towards the chair. It misses and clatters as it hits the floor. The agent at the publisher's had confirmed Ezra was moving ahead. He was going to push forward with the book. He was going to get his hallmark ending, thanks to Aria's gullibility. Maybe it would go something like this: _Alison DiLaurentis may have been a liar, but she was larger than life. She cheated death and used her own so-called death to wield an advantage._ Aria wishes momentarily that Alison was dead again, just to ruin Ezra's big denouement. _I think I liked her better when she was dead._

Hanna has been gone for a while, she thinks, but then again she has no concept of time—no concept of anything. Living or dead, love or ruse. It's all a lie.

"No more torching Ezra until I get back," Hanna had said, but Aria has already torched Ezra in every way her mind can conceive—sometimes with him alive and screaming, other times with him locked in a freezer with flame licking at the walls, and the most satisfying of all options was him defeated, silent. 

The kitchen is cold. Aria paces it, barely restraining herself from grabbing whatever she can reach to smash. Her father doesn't need the mess, neither does Mike, even if he is dating that snake.

"Maybe Ezra will date Mona next for research," Aria says. She laughs, bitter and sharp, as new tears fall. She slaps them away from her cheeks.

Tears are bullshit. Ezra isn't worth tears. The only thing left is revenge. 

She had worked so hard to protect Ezra from her parents and friends—because she was a minor and his student. She remembers how they had fought for ages over it themselves. A charade. Ezra knew she was 16-year-old at the grill's bar when he'd asked her about her major (the first meeting once treasured, now burned to cinders, a lie). He had dated Alison when she was only 15—maybe even 14, depending on the timing of it all. He said she'd lied about her age, but had Ezra believed the lie? Maybe he just liked younger girls. Maybe he liked that Alison's favorite book was _Lolita_. Maybe he liked filling that role, that story. It's all a story to him.

For not the first time, Aria imagines Alison's hands on Ezra's jaw, cupping it, pulling him into a kiss—

Before Aria can even consider it, she's got one of the chopping knives in her hand. It's not fire, but it's just as effective. She can upend Ezra's life just as effectively as he did hers.

She smiles coldly, imagining Ezra being led away in handcuffs. She charges herself with the head of publicity for his book. Surely negative publicity is the best publicity. She's upstairs getting ready before the plan is fully hatched. 

Then she's in her car driving to the principal's house. She's got nothing left to lose. She'll burn herself, too, if it means burning Ezra for what he did. 

As a consolation gift, she can mail Ezra a copy of his book in prison, perhaps signed "Kisses -A." He'll appreciate the reference.


End file.
